Abstract
BackgroundPlant breeding has been proposed as one of the most effective and environmentally safe methods to control fungal infection and to reduce fumonisin accumulation. However, conventional breeding can be hampered by the complex genetic architecture of resistance to fumonisin accumulation and marker-assisted selection is proposed as an efficient alternative. In the current study, GWAS has been performed for the first time for detecting high-resolution QTL for resistance to fumonisin accumulation in maize kernels complementing published GWAS results for Fusarium ear rot.ResultsThirty-nine SNPs significantly associated with resistance to fumonisin accumulation in maize kernels were found and clustered into 17 QTL. Novel QTLs for fumonisin content would be at bins 3.02, 5.02, 7.05 and 8.07. Genes with annotated functions probably implicated in resistance to pathogens based on previous studies have been highlighted.ConclusionsBreeding approaches to fix favorable functional variants for genes implicated in maize immune response signaling may be especially useful to reduce kernel contamination with fumonisins without significantly interfering in mycelia development and growth and, consequently, in the beneficial endophytic behavior of Fusarium verticillioides.
Highlights
Plant breeding has been proposed as one of the most effective and environmentally safe methods to control fungal infection and to reduce fumonisin accumulation
Genome-wide association study (GWAS) using inbred line panels appears as an effective alternative to this step-by-step approach for detection of genes involved in resistance to maize kernel contamination with fumonisin
Genotype x environment interaction was highly important for this trait (Table 1), but the phenotypic mean across environments would finely correspond to genotype performance because genotype x environment significant effects have been rather attributed to heterogeneity of genotypic variances than to the lack of correlation of genotype performance in different environments [14, 36]
Summary
Plant breeding has been proposed as one of the most effective and environmentally safe methods to control fungal infection and to reduce fumonisin accumulation. The search for strategies to reduce maize kernel contamination with fumonisins became a priority in many places of the world just few years after fumonisins were discovered [3], and plant breeding has been proposed as one of the most effective and Samayoa et al BMC Plant Biology (2019) 19:166 resistance to FER and concluded that selection for reduced FER could have limited effectiveness to improve resistance to fumonisin accumulation In view of these results, more QTL studies to detect specific genomic regions involved in resistance to maize contamination with fumonisins are needed. Fine mapping allows breeders to significantly reduce the confidence interval for QTL position and, at the end, to locate the gene or genes behind the QTL; but it is expensive and time-consuming In this context, genome-wide association study (GWAS) using inbred line panels appears as an effective alternative to this step-by-step approach for detection of genes involved in resistance to maize kernel contamination with fumonisin. GWAS has been performed for the first time for detecting high-resolution QTL for resistance to fumonisin accumulation in maize kernels
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